North Dorset CPRE’s Rupert Hardy sees a fight coming as Labour’s rural policies begin to spell trouble for Dorset’s countryside
Since Labour entered government it has brought in a multiplicity of measures, some financial but others administrative and planning-related, which suggest it is determined to bring in changes to promote its growth and clean energy agendas at the expense of the countryside.
The fact that most constituencies in the South West, outside the cities, voted for Tory or Liberal MPs is, of course, purely coincidental.
The October budget brought in inheritance tax on farmers, resulting in massive protests. It also hiked the minimum wage and employers’ National Insurance contributions, affecting small businesses particularly: there are more of these proportionally in the rural parts of the country. Labour even increased rural bus fares, hurting those who have no car.
Unrealistic targets
Changes to the New National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) were brought in last December. The Government is imposing ridiculously high housing targets on Dorset Council (DC), requiring the number of new homes to rise from 1,310 to 3,230 a year. This is much higher than the 1,793 homes proposed in the 2021 draft Local Plan, which was much criticised at the time. DC have said they are ‘unrealistic’ targets too – but we won’t know whether they defy the Government until the new draft Local Plan is published, later this year.
All towns and large villages in Dorset will be earmarked for new development, but it will be worse in North Dorset, where less than half is covered by National Landscape designation, which gives some degree of protection.Those flawed housing targets will also be difficult to achieve, given the supply of available building materials and labour. Planners would be forced to approve unsustainable developments on Green Belt and greenfield sites, adversely impacting the environment and worsening climate change. There will inevitably be increased traffic congestion and more pressure on already inadequate infrastructure.
There is no evidence that planning constraints are the main barrier to house building in Dorset. Last autumn there were more than 11,000 approved building plots awaiting development. Overall, we would prefer achievable housing targets to be used – ones based on local data, detailing household growth, affordability and current house completions.
The Government may have recognised there is a crying need for more affordable housing, as well as social rented accommodation, but there is scant funding for it.
We need a national land use framework – there could be other solutions. Why did Angela Rayner cut housebuilding targets for our cities?
Why has there been no attempt to revise council tax bands or encouraging the sale of large houses in other ways, such as reducing stamp duty for ‘last time buyers’?
Local democracy threatened
The Government is now set on reducing the role of planning committees, with greater reliance on Local Plans for deciding where houses will be built. It also wants more planning to be regionalised, with local authorities being forced to link up. Dorset is talking actively to Wiltshire and Somerset. All this will result in much less local democracy.
Clean Power 2030 Action Plan
In December, Ed Miliband published his Clean Power 2030 Action Plan to switch to 95 per cent clean energy by that date. Much of his plan is based on heroically optimistic assumptions. The mountain of grid upgrades looks insuperable. The countryside will bear the brunt, of course, as more solar farms on greenfield sites are rushed through and new pylons built. Dorset may be spared the mega solar farms and pylons that East Anglia is facing, and is lucky that the only offshore wind farm being proposed for Dorset, Portwind, can be connected relatively easily to the substation at Chickerell.
However, we believe the onshore focus should be on rooftop solar, which the Government has been slow to act on. CPRE has been actively supporting a private member’s bill in Parliament, the Sunshine Bill, which seeks to make it mandatory for all new housing to be fitted with solar panels. We hope it makes faster progress than it has done so far – after its second reading in January, the bill was adjourned until July.
The next few years are going to be difficult, and it will take time for realism to permeate government thinking. A Trump presidency will put pressure on the need for more defence spending and so some of Labour’s other ambitious programmes may get diverted.
In the meantime, talk to your local Dorset councillor and protest to your local MP. Those in marginal seats with a significant rural population should be most concerned. We may have an affordable housing crisis – which we addressed in our Affordable Housing Crisis conference last year – but it will not be solved by concreting over our beautiful countryside. Dorset is worth protecting!
